September 28, 2007

Blade Runner: The Final Cut Coming Soon

Wired is running an interview with Ridley Scott about a new version of one of the most famous Science Fiction films of all time. Blade Runner: The Final Cut will be released in theaters this October, and on DVD this December (finally someone understands long windows before DVD suck, although I'm sure this time it's motivated by sales research). Scott answers some interesting questions that have been batted around by fans of the film for decades, and talks about why he's been working on The Final Cut.

Superficially it seems like something similar to George Lucas' desire to refresh the original Star Wars Episodes IV-VI, but it looks like Scott's motivation is just to clean it up, so we don't have to worry about stupid changes to the plot or scenes. Wired writes about Scott's efforts:

As the millennium turned, he continued polishing: erasing stray f/x wires, trimming shots originally extended to accommodate the voice-over, even rebuilding a scene in which the stunt double was obvious.

I'm definitely looking forward to this. Blade Runner is one of my favorite films of all time, and was very influential to me growing up. It really defined an entire genre of books, movies, and even video games. I just hope the DVD won't be particularly expensive, and perhaps I'll even be motivated to purchase it in a high-definition format, although that really depends on where things are in the marketplace and DRM as the new year comes around.

Posted by josuah at September 28, 2007 6:26 PM UTC+00:00